


The Fridge

by rchr



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Gen, Jemily-ish, Light Angst, Mostly Gen, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rchr/pseuds/rchr
Summary: Welcome to The Fridge, where all female characters go to die when the men in their lives need an excuse for character development.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	The Fridge

**Author's Note:**

> Season 6 JJ meets pre season 7 summer hiatus Emily

JJ’s eyes snap open. 

The ceiling is white tile, framed by LED lights. Nondescript. She’s in a bed with starchy sheets. Hospital? 

She takes stock. 

She’s uninjured and unrestrained. She feels lucid. Her hand reaches for her hip. No gun. She’s still in the dark blue blouse and slacks she’d been wearing on the way home from the office. For the last time. The stab of grief at leaving the team is unsurprising but still unwelcome, and useless in her current predicament. She tries to recall the warmth of Pen’s final teary hug, to center herself. 

Wait a minute. 

She flips through her memories of the rest of the evening. A knot builds in her stomach. More and more unsettling to discover that she can’t remember anything past the elevator. The doors closed and then — nothing. Blank. Was she drugged? She doesn’t remember seeing anyone else in the elevator. She distantly recognizes that she’s beginning to panic, but the wave doesn’t get a chance to overwhelm her before a voice chirps suddenly by her head. 

“Hello!”

Startled, JJ sits up hastily in the bed. She hadn’t noticed anyone come in and hadn’t felt any presence when she initially woke. How heavily had she been sedated? 

Her visitor is a beaming young woman in a gleaming ensemble of clothing that seems to shift when JJ tries to take a closer look at it. A bright yellow dress one moment, a dark leather jacket and boots the next. JJ shakes her head and pinches her eyes closed. She must still be coming down from whatever she’d been given. 

“My name is Mary,” says the woman. “And I’ll be your Moderator this evening.”

JJ squints at her. “Is it evening?” The glare of the lights overhead could mean anything.

“Oh, there aren’t any normal day-night cycles here. It’s just something I like to say!” Mary’s voice is enthusiastic and charming, despite its pitch. “I assure you, you won’t notice the difference, anyway.”

“Oh,” JJ says, not assured. “That’s. Nice. Of you to say.”

“Thanks!”

JJ glances around the room, taking in the similarly tiled white walls. No window. One door. No other furniture. The only potential weapon is Mary’s clipboard and attached pen, both hugged close to her strangely morphing chest.

“So,” JJ says slowly, still trying to gauge how much of a threat Mary is. She’s petite, so JJ judges she can probably overpower her if necessary. But so far she’s been friendly enough, stable enough, and seems open to sharing information. “Where is this, exactly?” 

Mary’s beam splits her face impossibly wide. It looks painful.

“Welcome to The Fridge!” She sweeps her arms up grandly. Somehow JJ can hear the capitalization.

“The what?” 

“The Fridge! Where all female characters go to die when the men in their lives need an excuse for character development.” 

“What — _die_?” _Die_? The word sinks in her belly like a hot stone. “Am I — am I dead?” She thinks of Henry, barely three years old. And Will. The agony is staggering, tearing through her with the sudden force of a hurricane, and she can’t breathe. She thinks of the team and their last sad smiles. Her mother.

Mary’s face contorts alarmingly.

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry, no!” She waves her arms as if to dispel the sudden onslaught of JJ’s grief. 

“No, dear, you’re alive and well! Yours is a special case. You’re a Main Character, and we always make accommodations for Plot Armor. See, there was an issue with your portrayer’s contract, so she’s been let go, and you’ve been transferred to an offscreen location. Since you haven’t been officially killed off, you’ve been relegated to our short term housing, at least until any remaining storylines involving you have been resolved, offscreen or otherwise.”

The grip around JJ’s lungs ease. She takes a steadying breath. Sifts through the words Mary has just flung at her. None of them make any sense.

“What does that mean, exactly?” she asks with an intense calm.

“Oh it’s just a lot of bureaucratic nonsense.” Mary flaps her hands and the clipboard some more. “I wouldn’t worry. You don’t have to do a thing!” She smiles at JJ again, looking utterly content, which is the complete opposite of any emotion JJ has roiling inside her right now. Mary’s now wearing a wedding dress of all things, and JJ thinks, to her irritation, that maybe this weird visual trick isn’t from drugs, and it isn’t going away. Her patience, already taut, snaps.

“Look. Mary. I don’t understand anything you’re saying, or who you are, or where this place is. But you need to let me out, _right now_.” JJ barely stops herself from snatching the clipboard from this hapless woman’s hands and braining her with it. She satisfies herself with clenching her fists instead and only imagining the feeling of her palm against that porcelain face. 

“Oh dear, oh _dear._ I see.” Mary’s expression of sudden comprehension looks about the same as her beam of delight, only more manic. “Looks like your Fourth Wall hasn’t been broken properly,” she says, as if that clears up everything. JJ wants to grab her and shake her until her hair falls out of its confusing coif (blonde a second ago but now inexplicably pink).

“‘Broken properly?'” JJ manages through clenched teeth. 

Mary ignores the violent gleam in JJ’s eye and devolves into muttering and pacing. “I _tell_ them they can’t skimp on the Reality Snap, but do they listen? _Oh no no_. Who listens to little miss Mary Sue? She’s basically just a Self-Insert! She’s a second-class citizen!”

JJ inches away from her. Maybe she misread the stable part.

“Okay,” JJ says, hands up and voice low like she’s seen Hotch do when talking down an agitated Unsub. She gets up slowly from the bed. Puts her feet solidly on the ground. “You’re not a second-class citizen, Mary. I’m sorry something is wrong with me,” JJ rolls her eyes internally. “But it doesn’t seem to be your fault.”

Mary stops pacing and gives her a strangled smile. 

“Well, anyway, it’s easily fixed.” Mary blinks upward through new bangs as if to ward off tears and clears her throat loudly. “I’ll schedule your appointment for later.”

She glances at her clipboard. “Let’s just proceed with the tour first, shall we?”

JJ, now a little sore from all the emotional whiplash, stares at her warily but nods reluctantly. At least a tour will get her out of this room. 

“Wonderful!” And just like that, the beaming Mary is back. 

And just like that, JJ wants to punch her again. 

Mary’s tour is as obtuse and frustrating as its guide.

“We are currently on the _Criminal Minds_ campus. Since you’re a Main Character, you get all the perks!” she cries joyfully as they pass what seems to be outdoor sports facilities. 

Mary is rattling off all the amenities available, of which there are actually an impressive number, when a hallway catches JJ’s eye. It’s not a particularly special-looking hallway, settled unremarkably in an unremarkable corner. It does lead ominously to dimly lit double doors, an anomaly here among the singles, which is probably what draws JJ’s attention. She starts to wander toward it but Mary snatches her arm quickly.

“Oh dear, you don’t want to go in there. That leads to the Spin-Offs.” Mary leans in close and JJ tries not to be too obvious about leaning in the opposite direction. “Not a great reputation, over there. Best to steer clear.”

Mary ushers JJ past the darkness and into a new hallway lined with rows and rows of regular old single-pane doors.

“Now we won’t be stopping in any of these, but I think they’re fun to look at. And as a warning: Please, _please_ , stay away from Spoilers, at least until we fix you up,” Mary chatters hastily. Her pace picks up, and she glances back at JJ as if to prompt her to follow suit.

A few of the doors are slightly ajar, and light streams out through the cracks. JJ can’t help it. She slows her walk gradually enough that Mary, an orange skirt now swishing about her hips, doesn’t notice immediately. JJ peeks through the open door labeled _Summer Hiatus_.

As if drawn magnetically, her eye catches on a dark-haired woman standing casually at a coffee machine (which looks strangely like the one back at the BAU office). The silhouette is painfully familiar. 

The woman turns. JJ gapes. 

“ _Emily_?”

At the sound of her name, Emily’s eyes turn to JJ and widen in shock. 

“JJ!”

JJ _sprints_. 

She hears Mary’s loud dismay and calls to “Stop!” follow her through the door, but she couldn't care less. 

JJ collides painfully with Emily, who feels real and solid and whose clothes don’t haphazardly change shape, which is more of a relief than JJ will admit. She feels Emily’s arms come up around her, and it’s so comforting JJ can barely hold back the wave of homesickness. Distantly, she hears Mary flapping anxiously behind her, having finally caught up. She was probably slowed down by the newly sparkling gown. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Emily exclaims incredulously. 

“Me? What are _you_ doing here?” JJ is equally incredulous. 

“Me?” Emily parrots, glancing over JJ’s head at Mary, who JJ can see in her periphery making very unsubtle lip-zipping gestures and, oddly, flashing the number six back at Emily. Mary’s hair is a mass of red now.

Sudden cold horror steals down JJ’s spine. 

“Wait. You’re not _dead_ are you?” she whispers. 

Emily only laughs, which relieves none of JJ’s fears, though her friend’s smile is chagrined and slightly ironic. 

“Sorry, JJ, can’t say. Official spoilers.” 

“Spoilers?”

Emily considers something. Behind her, JJ can feel the air moving with the force of Mary’s frantic flapping. JJ watches a decision solidify itself on Emily’s face. 

“I’m technically from your future, JJ.” 

Mary deflates in despair. For once, JJ’s in agreement with her; she doesn’t think she can take much more of this. 

Bone weary, she says, dryly, “My what?”

Emily squints at her. To Mary, she asks, “Did they botch her Wall Break?”

Mary only groans out a pathetic, “Yes.”

“Ah, that explains it.” 

“Okay, can _someone_ just tell me what the fuck is going on?” Jesus, it’s like trying to talk to Hotch and Gideon when they used to go off to brood together. 

“I already told you, dear!” Mary chirps, suddenly wearing a heavily padded pantsuit. “Your portrayer —”

“Yeah, not from _you,_ ” JJ glares. “I need a real explanation.” Looks to Emily.

“It’s the Reality Snap, JJ. It’s muddling things up in your head,” Emily says in a voice so reasonable and so familiar. But the words still aren’t clicking.

Emily seems to sense that she’s on a precipice, because she says quickly, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. They can fix it so this will all make sense. Then we can figure things out from there.”

“I don’t _want_ to be ‘fixed,’” JJ is frustrated now, and it’s making her stubborn. “I just need to get home.”

Emily’s gaze is painfully compassionate. JJ briefly, irrationally (she loves Emily) _hates_ her. 

“JJ, this is home now.”

JJ stares at her.

Then she blacks out.

Things go muddy. And maybe a little sideways.

When she comes back to herself, she’s sitting on the floor, Emily crouched concernedly in front of her. Mary is flitting about in a panic again, but she’s only a strange mirage of color dancing in the corner of JJ’s vision, easily ignored for now. She tries to focus on Emily’s smooth, calm voice singing a litany of “hey you’re okay, everything is going to be fine, you’re good.”

After a long moment, she feels steady enough to stand. The first thing she sees is the coffee machine. It is utterly destroyed. 

“Did I —?” she points. Emily nods with a slight wince. “Oh.”

Mary is nearly hysterical, and JJ feels a little bad. She’s just trying to do her job. The woman is in a leather catsuit now, and distraught as she is, she flat out refuses JJ’s repentant offer to help clean. But she also gives up on JJ’s tour, too distressed by her unruly charge to continue. Indignant, she stalks away, muttering surprising obscenities about the Reality team and its uselessness and their equally useless mothers and frustrating residents with terrifying tempers that _were not noted in their files._

In her wake, JJ turns to Emily. 

“Sorry for breaking your coffee machine,” she says, ruefully eyeing the mess she made.

Emily also looks mournfully at the spilt coffee seeping slowly across the floor but ultimately waves her off. 

“It’ll get fixed in the reset. Nothing is permanent here,” she adds at JJ’s inquisitive look. 

JJ is suddenly so tired. She stares at the coffee. Glares at it. It won’t be here whenever this “reset” happens, but she will be.

“So,” Emily heads off what was likely going to be an epic sulk. 

“So.” 

“Want to take a walk with me?” 

JJ looks up and Emily is smiling at her. Despite herself, JJ feels the sight ease something in her.

“Yeah, okay.”

Their walk takes them further into the _Summer Hiatus_ domain, a place about which Emily predictably doesn’t clarify anything. It looks much the same as the area Mary walked JJ through earlier. White walls, large windows opening out into a massive courtyard with tennis and basketball courts and green lawns and trees and blue skies. JJ has never been to a country club, but this is what she imagines they must be like.

“I just don’t understand,” JJ says eventually.

Emily stops and waits patiently. JJ breathes a moment. 

“I just saw you. Back at Quantico. We said goodbye.” 

“We did. I remember that.”

“Then how are you here?”

Emily hesitates, but only briefly. 

“Time doesn’t much matter here, in case you didn’t notice,” Emily nods at the bright blue sky through the window. It’s an impossible, unreal blue. It hurts to look at it. JJ can’t see the sun, but the shadows on the ground don’t seem to be changing, though she’s sure they’ve been walking for at least an hour.

“So you really are from the future.”

Emily laughs. 

“Yeah, in a way. In another way, we’re always saying goodbye. And we’re also always here. Our perspectives just change sometimes and we see reality differently. That’s what this place is. It’s a change in perspective.”

“You know I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s not the easiest thing to explain.”

“You’re telling _me_.”

They’ve wandered outside now. The grass feels so real under her feet. Her mind still refuses to accept that this is her reality, but the breeze is a pleasant whisper on her face.

“Have you met anyone else we know?” she asks.

Emily goes quiet, makes a few false starts, and JJ is about to redirect her question, when she speaks up again.

“Haley’s here.”

That complicates the knot in JJ’s stomach. 

“How is she?” she manages, thinking about Hotch and those terrible months. Thinking about Hotch stings.

“Oh, as well as you can expect. You know, they don’t let us keep anything from the other side. No photos, no keepsakes. And we can’t ask after anyone from over there.”

JJ frowns. 

“Have you ever tried leaving?”

The look Emily gives her is the same one she turns on Morgan when he’s being purposefully dense. Thinking about Morgan stings, too. 

“If we go exploring too long through the halls for exits or weak spots little Miss Sunshine pops up.”

“We?”

“Haley and I.”

“So you’ve tried.”

“A few times.”

“And Mary stops you.”

“She does — something. And then we’re back in our respective wings.”

“Any other guards around?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

JJ looks sidelong, another question burning on her tongue. 

“So are her clothes —”

“ _Yes_ —”

“It’s freaking me out a little —”

“Same here!”

“Good to know.”

“I thought I’d finally lost it the first time I saw it.”

"So it's not normal, even for here."

"Not a chance."

“I thought I’d been drugged.”

“That would be the logical explanation. God, this place is _weird_.”

JJ can’t help but laugh at that. She’s still reeling, still not sure what’s happening to her. She misses Henry and Will with an awful gnawing in her chest, and she wishes the rest of the team were here, but having Emily with her warms her so thoroughly she can’t talk past the ache in her throat for a second.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Emily.”

Emily smiles and tugs her in for a long, warm hug. Emily gives the best hugs.

“You don’t know how good it is to see you, JJ.”

Blinking back tears, JJ releases her. A thought takes hold of her then at the sight of her friend, here with her. Together. Her resolve sharpens. 

“Emily, we’re getting out here” she says, intent.

Emily raises an eyebrow at the sudden fervor in her voice.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I’m in,” she vows in her brash Emily way, and JJ smiles. 

* * *

Phase one of their escape plan is fairly simple, or so JJ imagines. They look for their dead. The only issue is JJ forgets about the whole “time has no meaning here” thing.

“Director Strauss!” JJ’s mouth falls open. “But — how — I just saw you the other day at work?” JJ feels herself flush. They hadn’t exactly departed on the best of terms. 

Erin Strauss stands before her, tall and regal in a bright blue tennis outfit complete with short skirt and matching polo, her blonde greying hair pulled up in its usual severe bun. 

“Hello Agent Jareau,” Strauss says with great dignity, apparently incapable of letting go of formalities, even here. “I imagine you just haven’t met this version of me yet.”

“The _future_ ,” Emily whispers from behind JJ, no doubt waggling her eyebrows. JJ tries to subtly swat at her. 

“Well, uh — we’re trying to get out of here, if you have anything that could help us.”

Strauss’s eyes narrow sharply. 

“Might I suggest taking a look into the _Side and Recurring Characters_ wing? You might be surprised at how many people are on the same page.”

Okay. A bit oblique. Questionably helpful. Which is par for the course with her experience with Strauss, honestly.

JJ nods in thanks, exchanging apprehensive looks with Emily. Satisfied with that interaction, Strauss nods herself, and walks away. 

“She’ll find us, I guess,” Emily murmurs, nonplussed. 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“What, you need a drink, too?”

“Do we know how many women have died in all our years of cases?” At the slowly dawning horror on Emily’s face, JJ adds, “Yeah, it might be time for a drink.”

"I know a place."

The place turns out to be the same lobby they'd discovered each other in _Summer Hiatus_ , now clean of all coffee disasters and equipped with a full bar. 

"I'm the only one in here for now. 'Special Exception,'" Emily's voice borders on bitter. And again JJ can hear the capitalization. "So it's always stocked for me."

Emily heads for a gin and tonic, JJ grabs a beer. They sip their beverages in companionable silence, though as comforting it feels to be doing something normal like having a drink with Emily, JJ can’t fully relax. She wonders out loud, "How long have you been here?"

Emily's forehead crinkles as she calculates. 

"It's hard to say, given the whole time construct thing. But based on your arrival, probably a few months of your time."

" _Months_?" 

Emily just shrugs like she hasn't destroyed JJ's equilibrium for the tenth time in as many hours. 

"Like I said, it's hard to tell in here. But I know it's been a while."

"Strauss said I hadn't met that version of her. Does that mean there's another JJ in here somewhere?"

"If there is, I haven't seen her."

"Huh.” JJ pauses thoughtfully. 

Wait.

She feels the blood drain from her face, and barely notices Emily leaning forward in concern. How did she not _think_ to ask before? She hesitates, struggles with the question, desperate to know but terrified of the answer. 

"Emily,” her mouth is dry, her heart thuds dully. “Is my sister here?"

Emily's gaze softens infinitely. She nods, and JJ’s chest erupts in a painful ache she’d thought she’d long forgotten. 

"Haley knows her. She's doing okay."

"Please,” the word feels like a sob. The chain around her neck is heavy and burning. “Take me to her."

"Absolutely."

Later JJ won’t remember the walk, following Emily blindly through what felt like an endless loop of the same white halls and half-open doors and huge windows. It takes an eternity but somehow also mere seconds, and they are suddenly in front of a door labeled _Minor Characters: Main Family._

Staring at the door, JJ is made of stone. She can’t lift her arms to push it open. She can’t tear her eyes away. She can’t burst into a run, can’t get far enough away from how much she wants to see her sister again. Can’t tear out the pit of dread holding her feet captive, keeping her from that very desire. 

“Hey,” Emily comes closer. “You don’t have to do this.”

JJ searches Emily's face. She finds only a deep well of compassion, as always with Emily.

“How can I not?” And that’s the thought that gets her moving. 

She’s inside. 

Everything looks exactly as she expects. Again, those drab walls. Angular window framing a peerless blue. It’s the figure tucked into a couch by the window that’s a punch to her gut. JJ drifts closer involuntarily. The barest whisper escapes her lips. 

“Roz?”

That familiar blonde head turns. This is every hopeful dream JJ has ever had, every nightmare. She has spent years learning to forget the way this moment will destroy her. Blue eyes pierce her. A voice she doesn’t recognize calls her name. It takes a moment to place it, but she realizes it’s _hers_. She’d forgotten the sound of her name on that voice. The girl is running, running, _running,_ and suddenly JJ has her arms full of a ghost, her nose pressed into a childhood scent.

“JJ, JJ, JJ,” she hears that voice chanting into her shoulder. Her arms lock tighter.

Impossibly, JJ is taller than her. When she was small, in her mind Roz was a giant. In her arms now, her sister is so fragile. She’s laughing and crying and _laughing_ , and she can feel Roz doing the same. For the first time JJ is glad to be here in this bizarre, sideways world.

The sisters finally release each other, and Roz trips over herself demanding news of everyone and everything. She gorges on stories of the remaining Jareau tribe, JJ’s work, JJ’s son, JJ’s family, then her music (“Kurt Cobain _what?_ ” JJ can _see_ her heart shattering). 

At some point Emily must have wandered off, but no sooner than JJ notices her friend is missing, she is walking back with a pinched looking Haley Hotchner in tow. 

“Had to bring the life of the party,” Emily grins. And so their numbers grow.

Roz’s understanding of The Fridge seems to be as limited as the rest of theirs. 

“Honestly, there’s not much to know,” Roz shrugs. “The story doesn’t have room for you anymore, or a Main needs motivation or something, so you get killed off and end up here for storage. Make a few flashback cameos now and then, if we’re needed. Mary figures it out. Everything goes through Mary.”

JJ is still trying to wrap her head around the idea of her life being a fiction, her self a plaything. It doesn’t sit well, but she’s trying to roll with the punches, however wild they are. The others seem to be compartmentalizing better, which JJ attributes to this “Fourth Wall Breaking” thing people keep mentioning.

“So how would I contact Mary if I wanted to talk to her?”

“She’s not all-knowing or anything. Honestly, just yelling has worked well for me. Lady can’t resist a good yell.”

As they talk and plan, JJ instinctively defers to Emily, the senior agent and a profiler besides. It’s not until Emily checks her that she even realizes she’s doing it.

“Hey,” Emily says pointedly when she waits for Emily to agree with her one too many times. “This is your rodeo. Nothing Haley and I have tried has worked so far. This is all you.”

“No pressure or anything,” Roz’s grin is cheekier and rosier than JJ remembers.

In defiance of classic horror movie law (Roz groans) they decide to split up. Emily and Roz will head to the _Side and Recurring Characters_ wing while Haley and JJ make a ruckus. JJ desperately wants to keep her sister within arm’s reach, but as Roz points out, “I’ve been here way longer. Plus the ladies down there like me. I’m kind of a celebrity around here thanks to you.”

Emily accepts JJ’s tacit _take care of her_ plea with a serious nod, then the two round a corner and are gone. 

JJ stares at the space Roz left. Most of her is convinced the entire encounter was another dream. The rest of her is still sure this whole ridiculous ordeal is a drug-induced nightmare. 

“You alright?” Haley comes up beside her. JJ had never been close to Mrs. Hotchner when she was alive, but what she remembers of the woman before WITSEC was a steadfast and warm mother. She can appreciate that.

“Yeah, I’m good. Ready to make some noise?”

Haley’s answering grin is surprisingly shark-like. 

Given her reaction to the coffee machine incident, it shouldn’t shock JJ quite so much how quickly the Moderator responds to some light vandalism and hollering. JJ’s just finished tearing the stuffing out of the couch, a screech building in her lungs as Haley’s own impressive shriek dies away, when Mary flies in, billowing lavender skirts nearly tripping her. 

“Oh my heavens, _what_ is that racket? Is everyone okay?”

“Haley!”

In a fantastic and completely unrehearsed move, Haley sweeps a leg under Mary’s skirts as she reaches them and brings the whole buoyant mess down. The clipboard clatters to the floor, and Haley quickly scoops it up to brandish forcefully. Mary’s limbs flail fruitlessly, like an upended turtle. JJ’s on her in an instant. 

“We’re not going to hurt you,” she promises in a low voice as she pins her down. “We just want to talk.” 

Mary looks up through the cloud of teal tulle, eyes huge and fearful. She nods violently. 

“Don’t run, and we won’t trip you again.”

Again, more frenzied nodding. JJ gets up and offers a hand, which Mary takes warily. As she stands, her eyes find the couch instantly.

“Oh, I liked that couch,” she sighs mournfully. 

“Sorry,” JJ says, not sorry. “Sit.”

This is absurdly easy, JJ thinks wildly as she watches Mary arrange herself carefully in the shambles of the couch, barely recovered from the attack. She seems, in her extravagant gown, very much like a misplaced queen among the rabble. 

“So, what would you like to talk about?” Her bearing is regal, but the heavy tremor in her voice betrays her. Her hands clench like she misses the clipboard. The tulle of her skirts is beginning to droop. 

“We are going to get out of here,” JJ says as Haley lurks behind her with the clipboard looking menacing. “And you’re going to help us.”

“Get out of here?” Mary’s voice is thin and uncomprehending. “But why?”

“You took me from my family,” Haley advances on her suddenly. “You’re taking me back.”

Mary looks between them, perplexed but sensing she’s on thin ice. She squeaks a few times before her voice returns.

“You have to understand,” Mary pleads. “You’re no longer part of their story. You’re brought here to Reality to move on. It’s what happens to all fridged characters.”

Haley’s eyes flash dangerously. 

“Being taken out of their stories doesn’t take away how I feel about them,” her voice is steel. “My family is more real to me than anything in this 'reality.'”

JJ bumps her shoulder to Haley’s in support and feels a grin stretch her mouth when Haley reciprocates. Mary takes in their united front with something like resignation. 

“I can’t help you, I really can’t,” she whimpers.

“You can, and you _will_ ,” Haley growls. The clipboard shakes with the force of her fingers pressing into it. Mary cowers, tears threatening to spill from terrified eyes. Her breath comes too quick.

“Okay, okay, let’s ease up.” JJ puts her hands out, placating. She gives Haley a long pleading look, trying to convey _this isn’t working, new tactic!_ After too many tense seconds, with Mary blubbering in the background, Haley backs down grudgingly. JJ turns back to Mary.

“Mary, why can’t you help us? Isn’t there a way out?” 

“W-well, ye-yes,” Mary stutters. “B-but you _can’t_!” 

“Why not?”

Mary doesn’t answer, hiccupping miserably.

“Mary,” JJ tries again. “Why can’t we leave?”

Mary’s face is turning purple. Haley towers over her, snarling.

“Mary, why —”

“Because then I’ll be alone!” Mary wails at last.

Haley and JJ look at each other. JJ aches a little at the admission, thinking strangely of Spencer. Thinking also of Henry, small and reaching for her. She opens her mouth to say — she doesn’t know what. Something comforting? Haley beats her to it.

“Mary, what if you came with us?” Gone is the menacing bad cop of earlier, and JJ can see Jack’s mom peeking through again.

A second later, words actually register. JJ goggles at her. Mary must have a similar reaction, because her loud sobbing ceases with a strangled gurgle.

“What? With you? Me?” Mary says faintly, sniffling.

Haley nods slowly, her eyes on JJ, and JJ shrugs back helplessly. Why not? The idea still seems completely foreign to Mary. 

“Leave The Fridge?” she repeats.

“If we can get out, there’s no reason you can’t either, right? We don’t need to leave you behind,” JJ reasons.

Mary ponders that, chewing her lip. Her dress deflates thoughtfully as she processes. 

“Does that make you my friends?” she says eventually, sounding remarkably young. JJ tries to control her surprise, but she’s not sure she’s successful when Mary turns pink, abashed. She tells her shoes, “In all the stories, when characters are friends, they don’t leave each other behind. They usually make a point of it, that they’ll stay together.”

JJ and Haley exchange another pinched look. 

JJ crouches next to Mary and settles a hand on one delicate eggshell sleeve, watching the shiver of her wet cheeks. She thinks of the hard line of Roz’s back to her in her old room so long ago. She thinks of the crack in her bleeding slowly, from walking away from her team. 

“Of course, Mary.” She thinks of Penny and Spence and imagines the way they would embrace this new outcast without question.

In the moment it takes to blink, Mary’s moroseness vanishes, and she’s made of sunlight again. “Oh my, friends!” she marvels. She shoots out of her seat on the decimated couch cushion and is off like a bolt of lightning, giggling madly to herself and twirling fluffy green skirts. 

JJ allows herself a brief moment to question whether they’ve just been duped, but the doubt is dispelled instantly. Mary’s joy is too utterly palpable to be anything but genuine. 

“Are we going to regret this?” Haley mutters to her, eyeing their new friend and looking nauseated. 

JJ really hopes not.

* * *

With Mary now a willing accomplice, the world’s strange logic starts to make a little more sense, or at least JJ comes to understand that it _has_ a logic. But something in her still can’t seem to absorb the details. She can follow it intellectually, but whenever she tries to think too hard on it, her mind slides away dizzily. Must be the Fourth Wall or whatever. 

Mary is trying to explain to Haley and JJ which archetypes they represent when footsteps herald the return of Roz and Emily. 

“How’s the A-Team?” Roz calls. 

JJ waits till they’re closer, then pulls them aside. Mary hums unconcernedly, dancing with herself idly. 

“I have good news.”

“She letting us out?”

“Well the populist rebellion part of the plan is out.” At Emily’s quizzical look, JJ elaborates. “She’s coming with us.” Emily actually does a double take at that. She says nothing, though she clearly bites back something probably scathing, so JJ nods to Roz. “What about you guys?” 

Roz is nearly bouncing. 

“We’re now several hundred strong! Emily bullied them all into coming along. It was great. They’re gathering in the courtyard.”

They all turn to look through the window, and sure enough, a crowd is amassing under the sun. JJ doesn’t look too closely at their faces, afraid to recognize them from countless pin-up boards. She does spot Strauss mingling, though, and talking to — is that Kate Joyner?

Catching the group up feels like being home again, running through yet another briefing. JJ relishes the feeling, trying to tamp down the urgency suddenly rushing through her veins now that their half baked plan is somehow going somewhere. 

Roz makes it a personal mission to fully befriend Mary, drilling the unsuspecting Moderator with endless questions on the mechanics of her clothing while the older women discuss their next steps. It’s still such a revelation to see her sister laughing. JJ drinks in the sight, tries to memorize the curve of Roz’s smile again, ignores the new pit in her stomach. The more they talk, the less certain she is of this Roz’s shape in her life. 

JJ shakes herself. She can’t think about that right now.

“So Mary knows the exit,” Emily is saying. “And has known this entire time.” Emily shoots an unhappy look at Mary, who perks up at her name but looks contrite when she hears the context. “What are our options? Take everyone back home?”

Mary butts in to point out the obvious. It’s impossible for the dead to go back to their original stories, no matter how messy their continuities. The one thing all stories have in common is their rules on death, and having a deceased character return without any justification, especially in a story grounded in realism, would implode the entire premise. But, and Mary is suddenly shy as she explains, there is a place called Fanfiction where they can find new lives. 

“It’s where I’m from,” Mary admits softly. Her dress has settled into a maroon color. She frowns distantly. “I didn’t mean to leave. Then I didn’t mean to stay away so long.”

“It’s okay, your home is still there,” JJ says gently.

“Won’t you be missed here?” Emily interjects.

“There are lots of other Moderators. It’s actually not uncommon for them to go missing. We all figure it’s their own business.”

That disturbs JJ to several degrees, but she can’t ask any further because Emily is on a roll.

"Isn't there any security that'll have issues with us just walking out?” she presses. “That's a lot of people.”

Mary shifts uncomfortably.

"No," she confesses. "I'm security. If I don't stop you, you can get out pretty easily." Here she hesitates guiltily. "No one's ever wanted to leave so badly before."

Emily narrows her eyes.

"I find that hard to believe."

Mary looks down at her lap, her fingers twining uneasily. 

"Well, at least," her voice is tiny. "No one's ever offered to take me with them."

Mary looks up at them, and JJ hadn't noticed before, but her face shimmers slightly under the light. It looks young and old and in between all at once. JJ can't seem to pin down her age exactly. Maybe that's the point. 

"We're friends, Mary," JJ says softly, despite sensing Emily's skeptical look boring into the side of her head. "Friends don’t leave each other behind."

Mary's returning smile wobbles, and her dress blushes pink. JJ mirrors her expression steadily. She’s not all that bad, Mary, once you get past the kidnapping and the unnerving costume changes and the abrupt mood swings.

“I’m not going,” Haley speaks up suddenly, voice thick. “I can’t. I need to go home to my family.” 

“Haley,” Emily puts a hand on her arm. “You heard Mary. It’s not possible. You’ll destabilize Jack’s world.”

“Then what was the point of all this? What am I supposed to do?” 

They all look at each other helplessly, at a loss. 

“Where we’re going, there’s a place that might work for you,” Mary pipes up. “The Alternate Universes. There are an infinite number of timelines there. I’m sure we can find you one that fits.” She smiles hopefully. 

For the first time, Haley’s pinched look relaxes the slightest amount. 

“I don’t know,” Emily murmurs. “Are you sure? Will it be the same?”

“I don’t need a new life,” Haley says, firm. “I need to see Jack again. Any way possible.”

Looking at the set of Haley’s face, sure and determined in the glare of the forever-noon sun, thinking of Henry under a different one, JJ understands completely. But she could never make that choice. 

Haley’s nod, on the other hand, is fully decided.

“That settles it then. Let’s head out.”

Haley steps forward and hands Mary her clipboard, a small apology in her eyes. Mary takes it gratefully, and, her ensemble reassembled, begins a cheery march out into the courtyard to face their dawdling army. 

The plan is met agreeably by the waiting party, as Strauss had implied it would not so long ago. Though JJ suspects that anything to break the monotony of their current limbo would probably elicit the same reaction. She can’t imagine how long some of these women have been trapped here and is afraid to contemplate it. With one more bright call from Mary, now somewhere at the front of the pack, they begin their trudge to freedom. 

The journey is as mundane as the initial tour JJ had been subjected to earlier. In fact, if JJ’s not mistaken, it’s nearly the same route. They trail through the same long white halls framed by the same windows before turning down the same dimly lit hall JJ recognizes as the way to the Spin-Offs. The dark double doors open into another large atrium shallowly lit, strangely, by a single dangling lightbulb, noir interrogation style. Through the gloom, JJ can see only the faint shapes of more doors. It’s too dark to read the signs tacked above them, but they seem to be in disrepair. This room feels like it’s been waiting for an arrival that never came.

“Well this isn’t haunted at all,” Emily says, hushed. Then, a disgusted scoff. “Was it _really_ this easy the whole time?” 

From up ahead, JJ hears Mary call, “No need to be anxious! I know it’s a bit spooky in here, but it’s only because we’re in the middle of renovations. Please pay no mind! We’re heading through the _Fandom_ door, here on your right.”

Mary has magicked a flashlight out of somewhere and waves the beam at said door like an air traffic controller. In the flashes of passing light, JJ can see the next door to the left labeled _Spin-Offs_ and one beyond called _Canon_ but nothing farther. For a long moment no one moves. The women all look at each other uncertainly. A low murmur rises. Some seem to regret their decision. 

“Thank you, Mary,” comes the sudden, authoritative tones of Erin Strauss. Her solid figure shoulders its way through the timid masses and plants itself firmly in front of the door. A second figure joins her, and JJ was right, that _is_ Kate Joyner. With nary a glance backward, the two join hands and step through. The black swallows them quickly and they’re gone. 

“Bye Erin,” Emily sounds disgruntled but also strangely awed.

“Who’s next?” Mary chirps. 

A few beats more of tension, then like the slow release of a sigh, the group begins to inch forward and shuffle tentatively through the door. 

“So, Fanfiction. How do we get there, again?" JJ asks. She vaguely remembers bits of Mary’s rambling explanation to the crowd but had been too far away to hear properly.

"Oh that's easy!” JJ nearly whips an elbow into Mary’s face when she appears suddenly at her shoulder. “Just follow the porn," Mary beams, chipper. 

"Excuse me? The — actually, nevermind."

"Good call," says Emily, her lip twitching. “Shouldn’t you be at the head of this caravan?”

Mary just smiles placidly. “Erin can lead them. She knows the way.”

“Oh yeah I bet,” Emily says. JJ chokes.

As the atrium slowly empties, JJ hangs back with Emily, who still can’t get over “the exit being so close, this _whole time_ , dammit.” The earlier anxiety begins to gnaw again at her. Her eyes find Roz, who is following Mary around with the attention of a small puppy, though she glances back at JJ periodically, checking in.

Haley waits with them, but she fidgets restlessly, eyes straining to see into the door as one by one another woman walks through that isn’t her. 

“Go,” JJ finally takes pity on her. Haley bites her lip. JJ smiles warmly, presses her palm to Haley’s nervously grasping hands. The act is a benediction, and JJ can feel the taut string holding the other woman together relax slightly. Haley turns her hands to clasp JJ’s, gratitude tripping off her crooked smile. She doesn’t say anything, but JJ can see the shape of Hotch in the way she steels herself silently. Even when you let go of someone, it seems, it’s impossible to be totally free of them.

Haley takes her hands back and steps away. Then she too is gone.

Mary floats over, shimmying in a loose coral jumpsuit with Roz trailing behind her. From the look in her sister’s eye, she knows what JJ’s going to say next and she pulls the words out first, before JJ’s courage even has the chance to rear up.

“You’re not coming, are you?”

JJ can only shake her head mutely. Roz’s lips thin, and she has the same furrowed brow she always got when she was holding something in. 

“I have to go back,” JJ says. Roz’s expression is stony. “Maybe that makes me selfish. But I need Henry and Will. And my team. I need them. Even if I’m not on the team, I need to be there, in that world. I need to be part of their story.” She looks anywhere but Roz’s face, utterly unable to. Can’t bear to see the _what about me_ written across it.

Mary's face shimmers gently, light crow’s feet now dusting the corners of her eyes. She reminds JJ of her mother. 

"Team as Family,” Mary intones. “That's one of your defining tropes. It is for your entire cast, actually."

JJ still doesn’t understand half of what comes out of Mary’s mouth, but she thinks she understands the sentiment. Her voice sticks in her throat as she tries on a watery smile. 

“So much for staying together,” she stumbles around the _goodbye_ on her tongue, but Mary’s smile doesn’t falter.

“‘How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.’ A.A. Milne,” Mary says, a secret glitter in her eye. She accepts JJ’s hug warmly, holding her close. “Go through the ‘Canon’ door. You’ll know the way.” 

As they separate, JJ looks up to find Roz’s gaze on her still, not angry as she had feared, but the resigned understanding in it is just as wrenching.

“Don’t worry about us,” her sister says, corners of her mouth tilting up, eyes serious. Then JJ’s arms are full of her, and the scent of home floods her senses. Roz’s hold on her is tight and painful. They breathe together, and JJ hears _I’ll always love you, JJ_ on the soft shore of Roz’s exhale.

Between this heartbeat and the next, JJ says goodbye to her sister again. But this time maybe hurts a little less.

Then it’s just her and Emily alone in the hollow atrium. 

“You’re not coming back with me, either, are you?” JJ says.

Emily’s smile is regretful, but not sad. 

“No,” she says. “I get it, though. I do. More than you know.”

JJ holds herself away for as long as she can, but the urge to embrace Emily finally overpowers her. She collapses into her friend’s arms and clings with all her strength.

“Thank you,” she says into her dark hair. 

“You’ll see me again,” Emily promises. 

“That’s a spoiler,” JJ laughs wetly.

“What’s the point of being from the future if you can’t spoil a few things?”

JJ can’t speak anymore and only clings harder for a long, infinite moment before softening her hold. Emily releases her slowly, reluctantly.

JJ feels her lingering behind her, but there’s no more room for glances back. The door to Canon is heavy against the clear air flowing in through it. Henry, Will, the team just beyond.

JJ goes home.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> What started as a parody swiftly became something else? Also known as JJ saving the day with hugs and the power of friendship.


End file.
